What AB de Villiers has to say about the CWC2015 Philander-Abbott selection saga

Well, it's not exactly ground-breaking information, but he does admit that the selection decision had quite an impact on him personally.

Well, it’s not like anyone expected fireworks. AB de Villiers is well-known amongst the cricket press corps as being…shall we say…always diplomatic.

However, in his newly released biography, De Villiers does suggest that the decision to play Vernon Philander ahead of Kyle Abbott during the semi-final of the 2015 Cricket World Cup, had an impact on him personally.

As a player writing an autobiography while still playing, he was hardly going to blow the lid off what actually happened that day, if he even knows, which he insists he doesn’t.

“It was generally assumed the same team would be named to play in the semifinal.”

“That was my expectation as captain, until I was called to a meeting at 5.30 on the evening before the match, half an hour before our usual team meeting was due to start, and was told Vernon Philander, who had passed his fitness test a few days earlier, would play instead of Kyle Abbott.”

“So what had happened? Had Vernon, who was officially classified as coloured, been selected ahead of Kyle, who was officially classified as white, to ensure there were four players of colour in our team for the semifinal? Or had the decision been made for purely cricketing reasons?”

De Villiers adds:

“It depressed me to even think of my teammates in these outdated racial terms, as white or coloured. Would anyone really mind if there were three or four players of colour in the side?”

“My mind was churning but, as the players gathered for the meeting, I had to keep everything together.

“I returned to my room and ordered room service with my wife, Danielle, but could not stop thinking about the selection issue. I needed to get my head around everything but I was emotional and, so far as I could see, the entire situation seemed so unnecessary and unfair on everybody.”

Then says:

“I didn’t sleep well that night and remember my first thought when I opened my eyes the following morning was “I hope Vern will be OK”.

“I didn’t know for certain what had happened. Even today, I still don’t know for certain what happened. I didn’t want to blame anyone. I wanted to treat the issue as just another obstacle to overcome. We had to deal with it.”

He goes on to add that he does not think that South Africa lost that semi-final because of the selection of Philander ahead of Abbott, but rather because of medley of factors, including South Africa’s hap hazard fielding on the day.